Any recommendations for an alternative to LingQ?
Great idea and if it worked would be a fantastic tool but it’s so broken it’s unusable.
I’ve cancelled my sub and need a better alternative
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For all of LingQs issues, the alternatives are far worse.
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What do you specifically want to do?
Assisted Reading? - readlang, google translate/deepl browser extensions to read in the browser, calibre you can set up to do “dictionary” look up to a specific dictionary style website if I remember correctly. Kindle
Videos - (netflix, youtube). Language Reactor.
SRS - Anki
Stats - spreadsheet.
Transcription - whisper ai.
text to speech - edge browser, chat gpt, google/amazon/microsoft text to speech. audacity to record any browser based (edge, chat gpt)
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I have not tried it yet but there is a free reading tool called LUTE recommended by guys at Refold. The thing is, if you can set it up.
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For reading I had a look at Language crush but I find it really clunky.
However the main draw for me with LingQ was the ability to import your own content. Podcasts are impossible to import and now netflix and YouTube don’t work, it renders LingQ useless. Yes I know there are very long winded work arounds but they require far too much effort.
Language reactor I’ve never been able to get to work either. It always just says the content is not available to import 
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I tried Languge Reactor using their browser plug in and the Orion browser on an iPad. You enable the plugin, go to the YouTube web site, and it provides a nice interface on top of YouTube where you can see the transcript and translation, and copy and paste lines from the transcript, and so on. It’s better than vanilla YouTube. It’s pretty good, but it doesn’t have dictionaries and I don’t think it keeps track of your progress.
Clearly LingQ could provide a browser plugin, but it might be outside the skillset of their engineers. That’s not a criticism, just a recognition that browser plugins require particular skills.
I’ve tried some other products but they were poor.
I agree, LingQ, when it works, is great despite the huge number of annoying bugs.
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No idea about Language Crush. Readlang is really the only one that I know of that allows “importing” text. I tried it back in 2017 and maybe once again in the 2020’s. Functionality was always a lot more limited to LingQ so I never bothered to use.
Asaad mentions LUTE. I think this may be a tool that somebody took over from the “Learning with Texts” pc application. I tried the latter in 2017 and found it clunky and tedious and not fun to work with. Also much more limited than LingQ. Give it a try though.
For my own purposes, I’m quite happy with LingQ. I tend to import articles, I have always had to do the workarounds for youtube in the past, so going back to this method is not so bad for me, plus with the whisper ai integration it still eliminates some steps I had to do in the past and allows me to import all those audios (for the videos) that didn’t have subtitles. I never used the Netflix import much as I find it boring and disorienting to just read dialogue without the visuals. Language Reactor is great for that.
What you mention about Language Reactor has me a bit puzzled as I didn’t know there is an import feature for that? I just use the browser extension, on pc. I go to netflix on the browser with the LR extension on and watch the movie/tv show. Works great (last time I used it anyway). No importing. It also works on youtube but I find it less useful here as it usually is feeding off of youtube subtitles which don’t have complete sentences, or the sentences are broken up so it mucks up the translation in my experience.
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LUTE is a nightmare to set up and once it is you’re basically doing data entry for every LingQ equivalent. It’s like spending an hour taking a detour just to avoid a one-dollar toll.
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